This is the story of Raven, a knight from the kingdom of Rheged who lived
in a time of war and civil upheaval. It is a faithful narrative of the
"Pendragon" roleplaying campaign called "Defenders of the Crown", run from
March 2003 - March 2004 in Luton, England, told from the point of view of
my character.

It has been almost eighty years since Rome withdrew her legions to defend
the homeland from barbarian invaders, leaving her far-flung province of
Britannicum to fend for itself. In these tumultuous times, no willing sword
is refused, and men and women fight side by side to preserve all they hold
dear.

The story proper begins in the year 506, when the kingdom of Rheged,
situated in the north of Britain close to Hadrian's Wall, is torn by civil
war after the murder of young Prince Caradoc, who should have inherited his
father's crown.

UPDATE 26.03.04: Uploaded the now edited Chapter XV, the new Chapter XVI
and the Epilogue

UPDATE 30.03.04: Response to the commenters:
I consider this story merely the "bare bones" of what would, if I ever
found the time and the inclination, become a much more rounded novel. None
of the characters have been well developed, there are few descriptions, and
the story is not properly linked together. This was partly done on purpose,
as I was merely writing up those parts of the roleplaying campaign that I
particularly enjoyed.

I have not been consciously influenced by any published works while writing
this story. It is based completely on the aforementioned roleplaying
campaign, written for my own amusement, and my interest in it stemmed from
the fact that many people's creative input led to the events that I have
described.

Ideally, I would rework the entire story into the first person perspective,
but the fact that the main character is a female knight in what is
supposedly our history already precludes any ambitions to try and publish
this story.

NOTE: I have realised that this website hasn't been able to properly format
.doc files, and that therefore all [...] are displayed as [.] and italics
as plain text.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.